"SZC" 2007 Obituary

SZCZEBIOT o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-11-23 published
head psychiatrist at Ottawa hospital survived notorious Lubyanka
Prison
Arrested after the Soviet Union invaded Poland in 1939, he was
sent to Moscow for interrogation. After the war, he settled in
Canada and became an early advocate of community mental health
By Buzz BOURDON,
Special to the Globe and Mail, Page S9
Ottawa -- At the beginning of the Second World War, Victor
SZYRYNSKI
spent almost a year incarcerated in Moscow's infamous Lubyanka
Prison, yet he refused to yield.
Along with many other Polish patriots, he was arrested after
the Soviet Union invaded Poland. The country was in crisis -
Nazi Germany had invaded Poland from the west 16 days earlier
on September 1, 1939, triggering the war.
He had been rounded up a year later on a charge of practising
anti-Soviet activities and transported to Lubyanka, the very
mention of which was enough to send shivers of terror down the
spine of most Soviets. Built in 1898 during the Czarist era as
the headquarters of the All-Russia Insurance Company, the building
had been appropriated by the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police,
after the 1917 revolution and used as a centre of torture, interrogation
and sometimes execution.
Dr. SZYRYNSKI felt his heart sink as he was led to his cell deep
inside the yellow-brick prison. Over the months that followed,
he was subjected to sleep deprivation, scanty rations, and aggressive
and lengthy questioning that went on at all hours of the day
and night. An intellectual who had published poetry before the
war, he suffered through months of intense questioning that might
have broken a lesser man.
Although he always maintained that his interrogators never physically
tortured him, he said they did their best to get the information
they wanted about his activities in the Polish underground. His
spirits never flagged, however. His fierce love of Poland and
his deep Catholic faith got him through the ordeal.
Dr. SZYRYNSKI, who was an assistant professor of neurology at
the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius, then part of Poland,
when the war broke out, had another ace up his sleeve. "They
couldn't get anything out of him because he knew how to confuse
his interrogators by using psychological techniques," said his
daughter, Theresa
AUBANEL. "He also had the mental attitude to
overcome his fears."
Victor SZYRYNSKI was born in prerevolutionary St. Petersburg,
the scion of an aristocratic Tatar family that traced its history
back to Genghis Khan. After the First World War broke out in
1914, the boy was sent to his grandmother's estate in Finland
and spent an idyllic childhood in the countryside.
At 12, he joined the Polish scouting movement and quickly grew
to love it, said his granddaughter, Anna
STACHULAK. He remained
devoted to scouting for the rest of his life. "He used to tell
us that life is with people, you have to reach out and be part
of a community, not to isolate yourself. He probably developed
all this from his love of scouting."
As Poland consolidated its independence from the Soviets after
the war, Doctor
SZYRYNSKI attended high school in Bialystok, then
graduated from the University of Warsaw in 1938 with a degree
in medicine.
Two years later, after his arrest, he was on a train with hundreds
of others on their way to an unknown fate. Before crossing the
frontier into the Soviet Union, the train stopped in Glebokie
to take on food and water.
One of the prisoners, a priest, asked a crowd of Poles gathered
near the train if someone could go to the local church and get
some communion wafers so he could celebrate mass. A young Girl
Guide offered to help and ran to the church. Returning, she crawled
under one of the carriages to pass the wafers through a gap in
the floorboards. It was Doctor
SZYRYNSKI who took them from her
fingers and, for an instant, they connected.
The priest said mass and the moment passed. Soon, the train was
on its way again and eventually the prisoners were delivered
to camps and interrogation centres deep within the Soviet Union,
including Doctor
SZYRYNSKI to Lubyanka Prison.
The fear must have been overwhelming to Doctor
SZYRYNSKI and his
Polish compatriots. Poland had been split by two brutal occupiers
and their families had no idea what would become of them. Would
they be sent to Siberia as slave labour for the camps, or would
they be taken from their cells in the middle of the night and
executed with a bullet in the back of the neck?
Decades after the war, Doctor
SZYRYNSKI confided that he had triumphed
over his captors because God had come to him in a dream. After
that, he said, "it was easy to look into my interrogator's eyes
with no fear. It made the cold nights in the prison warmer."
To keep their spirits up, Doctor
SZYRYNSKI and his Friends recited
as much Polish literature as they could remember. They also managed
to read all of the many volumes of Marcel Proust's À la recherche
du temps perdue. They shared their meagre food and dreamed of
the day when they would be released and reunited with their families.
In June, 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and finally the
Kremlin decided to release tens of thousands of Poles, including
Dr. SZYRYNSKI. He joined Polish forces under British command
in Iraq as a medical officer and spent the next five years in
Africa and the Middle East, treating Polish orphans living in
refugee camps. When the war ended he was awarded Poland's Silver
Cross of Merit, with swords.
By that time, he was back in Iraq working at a military hospital
near Baghdad. On the staff were a number of Polish nurses, one
of whom caught his fancy. She was about 10 years younger than
him and, to his eye, there was something very appealing about
her.
Her name was Jadwiga
SZCZEBIOT and he set to thinking about how
they could be properly introduced. It was not long before he
had enlisted the help of a priest, who invited the nurse to come
by for tea. When she arrived, she discovered the priest already
had another guest - Doctor
SZYRYNSKI.
It wasn't long before romance flourished between the two compatriots,
far from home and facing an uncertain future. They traded stories
and Jadwiga shared how, she, too, had been rounded up by the
Soviets and shipped to Siberia. He told her of his experiences
in Lubyanka Prison, and of being sent to Moscow on a train full
of political prisoners. To their astonishment, they realized
they had met before. Jadwiga was the Girl Guide who had fetched
the wafers.
Two years later - seven years after they had unknowingly met
amid the human flotsam and jetsam of a world war - the couple
were married in Jerusalem on April 12, 1947.
"We just liked each other," Ms.
SZYRYNSKI said this week of their
meeting outside Baghdad. "He was nice, very pleasant. We went
swimming, walked by the river together."
AfterJerusalem, they emigrated to Britain, where Doctor
SZYRYNSKI
completed postgraduate studies. They arrived in Canada in 1948.
After completing his doctorate in psychology at the University
of Ottawa, he taught psychiatry. He also specialized in neurology
and psychotherapy. In 1964, he was named head of the psychiatry
department at Ottawa General Hospital.
For four decades, Doctor
SZYRYNSKI's research and clinical work
focused on the community and he became an early proponent of
preventative psychiatry and the team mental health approach.
"He advocated tirelessly for prompt recognition and assistance
of mental health problems by co-operation among family, community,
professional and religious services," said his granddaughter,
Christina STACHULAK.
The author of more than 70 articles, he was a fastidious man
who expected high standards among his peers. Over the course
of his career, he was awarded many honours, including fellowships
in the Royal College of Physicians, Canada, and the American
Psychiatric Association.
A central figure in Canadian-Polish community relations, Doctor
SZYRYNSKI
spent a lifetime contributing to his church. In 1969, at his
Ottawa home, he entertained an obscure Polish cardinal called
Karol Wojtyla, who later became Pope John Paul II. The two hit
it off and corresponded over the years, meeting five times in
all. "His religion was deep inside, he never talked about it,"
said his wife. "It was deeds that counted."
Victor SZYRYNSKI was born October 10, 1913, in St. Petersburg,
Russia. He died of natural causes in Ottawa on September 21,
2007. He was 93. He leaves his wife, Jadwiga, daughters Barbara
and Theresa, grandchildren Anna, Christina, Sebastien, Vincent
and Alexandre, and great-granddaughter Rose.

SZCZERBIK o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-06-23 published
YUSKEWICH,
John
Passed away after a courageous and well fought battle with Emphysema
at Laurentian Hospital in Sudbury on June 20, 2007.
John was born in Ukraine on April 4, 1904, in the Village of
Werchrata, Rawaruska District Halychyna,
son of the late Petro
YUSKEWICH and Anne
(HUK.)
He was predeceased by his sister Maria
SMUT, cousins Doris
GUAY
and Polly CZEREWKO.
John came to Canada in 1948 to Wishart, Saskatchewan, sponsored
by Fred G. Bzdel. He went to Winnipeg in 1949 to his aunt Julie
TYPA, where he worked for the C.N.R. In 1950 he moved to Sudbury
where he worked for Inco in the mines and smelter until his retirement
in 1984. At the mine he was known by his fellow workers as "Fur
Coat Johnny".
John is survived by his nephew Michael
DUDA, his wife
Louise
and their son Sebastien in Montreal. Nieces Katyryna
KUZMIAK
and Maria SZCZERBIK both in Ukraine. Cousins Harry
TYPA,
JoanneHEALEY and Helen
HUEN in Winnipeg, Michael
CZEREWKO in Havelock.
Joan PETERS, Janet
PETERS, Steve
PETERS, Joseph
PETERS, his wife
Irene in Saint Thomas.
The family would like to give special thanks to the Staff at
Westmount Retirement Home and the Doctors and Nurses at Saint_Joseph's
and Laurentian Hospitals.
Resting at the Jackson and Barnard Funeral Home, Sudbury. Funeral
Mass in Saint Mary's Ukrainian Catholic Church, 40 Notre Dame Ave.,
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 10 a.m. Interment in the Civic Cemetery,
Second Ave. Donations to Saint Mary's Church or charity of your
choice would be appreciated. Friends may call 6-8 p.m. Monday.

SZCZUR o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-07-21 published
DONALDSON,
Dorothy (née
KEALLY)
Died on July 12, 2007. She is survived by her husband of 64 years,
J. Boyce DONALDSON; a daughter, Leslie D.
PATTEN and son-in-law
Michael; a son John B.
DONALDSON and daughter-in-law, Pamela
five grandchildren: Bethany
SZCZUR,
Nicholas, and Jonathan
PATTEN,
Alissa LANE, and Ava
DONALDSON.
Two sisters, Jane
STANTON and
Mary Ruth SIMPSON are deceased. Dorothy was born in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania on October 27, 1923 to Henrietta and Howard
KEALLY.
Dorothy was a resident of Naples since 1984 formerly of Pekin,
Illinois. She and her family lived in several cities in North
America including 16 years in Canada. She attended the Ellis
School in Pittsburgh and Southern Seminary in Virginia. Dorothy
has been an active volunteer with many organizations including:
the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, the Altar Guild of Trinity
by the Cove, Meals on Wheels, Hospice, as well as Step by Step,
Vineyards, and Pelican Marsh Elementary Schools. A service will
be held at Trinity by the Cove in Naples, Florida on Saturday,
July 21 at 10: 00 a.m. Memorial donations may be made to the Conservancy
of South West Florida, 1450 Merrihue Drive, Naples, Florida,
34102. Arrangements by Fuller Funeral Home, 1625 Pine Ridge Rd.
Naples, Florida. 239-592-1611.

SZCZYGIEL o@ca.on.grey_county.artemesia.flesherton.the_flesherton_advance 2007-07-04 published
QUILLINAN,
EdwardJoseph "
Joe"
At Grey Gables, Markdale on Tuesday June 26, 2007, Edward 'Joe'
Joseph QUILLINAN of Markdale in his 100th year. Dear brother
of Cecilia 'Ceal'
QUILLINAN, of Markdale. Uncle of Don
DENTON
and his wife
Natalia of Nanaimo, British Columbia, Maureen
BOTTRELL
and her husband Harvey of Barrie, Marcia
HUNTER and her husband
Don of Toronto, Brenda
FARRUGIA and her husband Art of Brampton,
and Marie McMANAMAN of R.R.#2 Shallow Lake. Also survived by
several great and great-great nieces and nephews. Predeceased
by his parents Michael and Mary
(RYAN)
QUILLINAN, sisters Margaret
DENTON,
Catherine 'Kay'
McMANAMAN and brothers Wilfred and Bill
QUILLINAN and nephews Bill, Felix and Jerome
McMANAMAN.
The family
received Friends at the May Funeral Home, Markdale, Thursday
from 7-9 p.m., where evening prayers were held at 9 p.m. Father
Leszek SZCZYGIEL officiated at a Mass of Christian Burial held
from Saint_John's Roman Catholic Church, Glenelg, Friday June 29
at 11 a.m. Pallbearers were John S.
BLACK,
CharlieBLACK, Myles
RYAN, Don
DENTON, Jim
McMANAMAN and Peter
D'ARCEY. Interment
in Saint_John's Roman Catholic Cemetery.
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